Back in 1998, Salman Khan along with his co-stars Saif Ali Khan, Tabu and Sonali Bendre was accused of hunting down blackbucks in a village of Rajasthan while shooting for their film Hum Saath-Saath Hain (1999). Bollywood’s Bhaijaan was arrested in an alleged case of poaching endangered animals and granted bail. In the last 26 years, the case has been closed and reopened several times. In 2016 he was acquitted in the case before being convicted again in 2018, later being released on bail. This whole fiasco also got Salman in trouble with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his gang, who consider blackbucks as sacred.
Recently there were fresh threats which forced Salman to boost his security. Well, amidst all the tension, an old video of the actor denying the accusations against him have now resurfaced on the internet. In an interview clip from 2008, shared on Reddit, Salman claims that he wasn’t the one who shot the blackbuck. Calling him a ‘victim of ignorance’, the interviewer stats that she does not believe Salman would have shot the animal if he knew it was an endangered species. When asked if that’s true, Salman replies, “There’s a long story there. And.. I wasn’t the one who shot the blackbuck.”
In the video, when the journalist points out that the actor took the rap for it and didn’t point fingers at anyone, Salman simply says, “There’s no point.” He also gives a sarcastic remark when asked about his time in jail, calling it a ‘lot of fun’. Well, this led to several speculations and netizen theories in the Reddit thread, with many fans calling their favourite superstar innocent.
On the work front, Salman is currently busy hosting Bigg Boss 18. He was reportedly going to shoot a cameo as his beloved cop character Chulbul Pandey from the 2010 film Dabangg for Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again. But as per latest buzz, the cameo was cancelled after politician and Salman’s good friend Baba Siddique’s assassination. Bhaijaan will next be seen in A.R. Murugadoss’s next film Sikandar.